[Pops]

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7212

A single season of drought in the Amazon rainforest can reduce the forest's carbon dioxide absorption for years after the rains return, according to a new study published in the journal Nature. This is the first study to quantify the long-term legacy of an Amazon drought.

[dbruning]

The greening is definitely a good thing, but the CO2 concentrations are still going up.

My main worry is that with the drought and fires we're currently experiencing, a lot of those trees and vegetation may end up giving back their locked up CO2.

My second worry is that even with the greening the CO2 levels are going up, where is that extra CO2 coming from? Could it be all the methane bubbling up and breaking down into CO2?

[Pops]

They have a wad of citations/refs, I can't get to many, (prolly wouldn't understand them anyway, LOL)

[asg70]

Why is this good news, happy news is roundly ignored?

Good news is relative. You seem to have difficulty accepting that the world remains well-supplied with oil.

[Pops]

Why is this good news, happy news is roundly ignored? It made a difference in my life. Way less stress, more able to appreciate that other approaching sh@t storm lol

Thanks for the link.
It's great news. Just like the umpteen hundred instances of bad news on the topic that I took with a grain of salt. They are models, observations, studies; not the living word of Gaia. I mean I like the idea of Gaia as self-healing system; but I also like the idea of a loving god that cares if my football team wins, doesn't mean I believe it.

[kublikhan]

We do know that the additional vegetation already laid down (by that greening effect) dwarfs all the fozzilized vegetation we have burned or will burn as fossil fuels.

oceans and land plants remove about 45 percent of the CO2 emitted by human activities each year. And the amount of CO2 that’s removed has more than doubled in the past 50 years. With plants, which need carbon dioxide to grow, that’s because CO2 increases photosynthesis. So more CO2 in the atmosphere means plants also absorb more CO2. But that doesn’t mean we’re fine pumping the greenhouse gas into the air. In fact, more CO2 means warmer temperatures, and warmer temperatures cause ecosystems — plants, trees, and even bacteria in soil — to release more CO2 back into atmosphere. So it’s a give and take.

Though the findings seem like good news, they’re not really, Keenan says. The last two years have been the hottest on record, which means that the magic the plants were doing has probably already ended. The CO2 plants store is also not gone forever, Keenan says. As more ecosystems are in danger because of climate change, more plants and trees will die and will rerelease that carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. There’s no escape. And the only solution is to reduce the amounts of CO2 we emit in the first place.

“The growth of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to grow. And until we really cut our emissions, that’s what’s going to continue to happen,” Keenan says. “So plants are helping us out, they’re buying us time, but ultimately it’s up to us.”

For 12 years, plants bought us extra time on climate change

Why is this good news, happy news is roundly ignored? It made a difference in my life. Way less stress, more able to appreciate that other approaching sh@t storm lol

It is good news the global greening is slowing down the effects of human co2 emissions. But the planet is only absorbing half of the co2 we are emitting. That means climate change cannot be dismissed just because global greening is occurring.

CO2 removals by natural sinks
Of the total emissions from human activities during the period 2007-2016, about 46% accumulated in the atmosphere, 24% in the ocean and 30% on land. During this period, the size of the natural sinks grew in response to the increasing emissions, though year-to-year variability of that growth is large. The strength of the 2016 ocean CO2 sink was above the decadal average and the land sink below average. Both trends are consistent with a positive phase of El Niño. The total estimated sources do not match the total estimated sinks, i.e., the carbon imbalance. This imbalance reflects the gap in our understanding and results from the uncertainties from all budget components.

Atmospheric CO2
The annual growth rate of atmospheric CO2 was 6.1±0.2 GtC (22.4 GtCO2 yr-1) in 2016, corresponding to an increase of 2.89±0.09 parts per million. This is well above the 2007-2016 average of 4.7±0.1 GtC yr-1 (17.2 GtCO2 yr-1) and reflects the large interannual variability in the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 concentration associated with the positive face of El Niño. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 402.8±0.10 ppm averaged over 2016, and the atmosphere is projected to accumulate an additional 5.3 GtC in 2017.

Cumulative Carbon Emissions
The cumulative carbon emissions are the sum of the total CO2 emitted during a given period of time. Total cumulative emissions from 1870 to 2016 were 420±20 GtC (1539 GtCO2) from fossil fuels and industry, and 180±60 GtC (660 GtCO2) from land use change. The total of 600±65 GtC was partitioned among the atmosphere (245±5 GtC), ocean (145±20 GtC), and the land (190±45 GtC). Land-use change represents about 31% of cumulative emissions over 1870–2016, coal 32%, oil 25%, gas 10%, and others 3%.

Global Carbon Budget

[kublikhan]

Furthermore warmer temperatures contribute, not detract from plant growth.

Warmer temperatures also result in plants releasing more c02.

There is no empirical evidence to support the model-based claim that future carbon uptake by plants will diminish on a global scale due to rising temperatures. In fact, just the opposite situation has been observed in the real world.

This is incorrect:

A study involving the Australian National University, Western Sydney University, and centres around the world has found plants release more carbon dioxide through their respiration. And as global temperatures rise, scientists say the output of carbon dioxide by plants will accelerate.

"What will happen in the future will be that those rates of carbon released by plants will increase as the world gets warmer, and it will have an impact on how much carbon is stored in vegetation, how much accumulates in the atmosphere in the future." The study examined about 1,000 plant species in a range of climate extremes, to determine how much carbon dioxide is released in various scenarios. Researchers said plants could also see a declining ability to absorb carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere through photosynthesis, and that carbon flow models and budget projections would need to be altered in response to the findings.

Plants release up to 30 per cent more CO2 than previously thought

Twenty years of field studies reveal that as the Earth has gotten warmer, plants and microbes in the soil have given off more carbon dioxide.

The Opposite of Photosynthesis
Plants are famous for photosynthesis, the process that stores energy in sugars built from carbon dioxide and water. Photosynthesis produces the oxygen we breathe as a byproduct. But plants also use oxygen and release carbon dioxide in the same manner that people and animals do. Soil respiration includes carbon dioxide from both plants and soil microbes, and is a major component of the global carbon cycle.

Researchers found that the total amount of carbon dioxide being emitted from soil in 2008 was more than in 1989.

Even soil feels the heat: Soils release more carbon dioxide as globe warms

more CO2 means warmer temperatures, and warmer temperatures cause ecosystems — plants, trees, and even bacteria in soil — to release more CO2 back into atmosphere.

For 12 years, plants bought us extra time on climate change

[kublikhan]

Yet the planet has warmed and there's more, not less vegetation.

This statement is correct. However it does not invalidate any of the studies I linked to.

So can those studies kub. They need a rewrite

Incorrect. The studies do not need a rewrite just because there is more vegetation. The question asked was: do plants release more CO2 at warmer temperatures? The answer: yes. This holds true for a single plant or a forest. Further, just because there is more vegetation, does not mean that it absorbs all of the CO2 humans release. Even with the increase in vegetation, plants absorb but a fraction of the CO2 humans release.

[kublikhan]

kub, your question is meaningless. As is the answer. You asked it of yourself.

As I said previously we have empirical data that contradicts those studies. Therefore said studies must be flawed or limited somehow. The planet is warmer and plants take up more, not less CO2. It is your task to determine why or how your studies are flawed. It is not my job.

You are misunderstanding something here pstarr. The studies I am linking to refer to the rate plants/soil uptake/discharge co2. And they are telling us that plants/soil discharge more co2 the warmer it gets. The empirical data you point to measures the amount of plants on the planet. And it tells us that the amount of plants has increased. There is no contradiction here. Plants/soils can discharge co2 at a higher rate at higher temperatures and at the same time we can have more plant cover on the globe. The total amount of co2 taken up by plants can still increase even if the rate decreases slightly because there are more of them.

Unfortunately, this is not the panacea to global warming you make it out to be. For one thing, the net increase in plants absorbing more CO2 is far too small to keep up with the increases in CO2 emissions. IE, we are belching out CO2 far faster than this increased plant cover can absorb. For another, much of this greening is happening as snow and ice melt. Snow and ice deflect heat. Vegetation absorbs it. IE, it might slow global warming via the greenhouse effect a bit. However it could also make global warming increase by changing the albedo of the planet(greenery absorbs more heat than snow and ice).

The planet is getting greener while global warming slows. But it comes with worrying caveats. For starters, the effect may not last as increased temperatures dampen plant growth and rainfall patterns change. Also, much of the greening has occurred in cold regions previously blanketed in snow. And while snow and ice reflect solar energy away from the planet, vegetation absorbs it, increasing land surface temperatures. Finally, the effect is simply too small to keep up with emissions. “Unfortunately,” says Keenan, the increased carbon uptake by plants “is nowhere near enough to stop climate change.”

Greening the Planet: The Fertilizer Effect of CO2 Slows Warming

“From this research, we can see these plants can help absorb some carbon dioxide, but there’s still a lot of carbon dioxide staying in the atmosphere.” In fact, during that decade, a total of 60 billion tons of carbon was added to the atmosphere.

“We know that the ice is melting in the north and it’s being replaced by vegetation. As permafrost melts and ice cover decreases, it’s replaced by vegetation.” Things get worse. Verchot says this type of vegetation in the north actually worsens climate change. “It’s going to have a negative impact because vegetation in the north is dark and absorbs more heat.” It creates what we call a positive feedback: something that reinforces the current climate forces that we have going on.” This is called the Albedo effect, and it’s bad news.

“We need to understand things for what they really are,” Verchot said. “The devil is in the details. “The big thing that people could take away from this study is that even if vegetation is increasing, it doesn’t mean we are solving problems,” he warned. “It could be a sign that things are getting worse.”

Planet Earth is actually getting greener — but that might not be a good thing

[kublikhan]

Your claims that plants discharge more co2 then they absorb is impossible. Plants are made out of co2.

Once again, you are confused pstarr. I made no such claim. My claims was: plants/soil discharges more co2 in warm weather than they do in cooler weather. However in both cases, they are a net carbon sink.

As for the ratio of new plant growth/co2 emissions; I will restate it again for you: the recent addition of cellulose in new vegetation dwarfs by many orders of magnitude the co2 released via the combustion of old fossil cellulose, ie fossil fuels.

Substantiate this statement.